


Dreams of Fire and Gold

by Serenade



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Eregion, Foreshadowing, M/M, Romance, Second Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-22 19:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17668997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenade/pseuds/Serenade
Summary: Celebrimbor wants to hold Annatar here forever.





	Dreams of Fire and Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WolffyLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/gifts).



Many lamps shone in the chambers of Celebrimbor, their brilliance reflected in many mirrors. Not for the sake of vanity, but for constant illumination. His work consumed his hours, waking and sleeping. Light fell on the snowstorm of his papers and the mountains of his books, and upon the bare shoulders of the Maia who lay in his bed.

"Why did you come here, Annatar?" he said. It was the same question he had asked in the halls of the council and the forges of the smiths. Then it had been a ringing challenge, but now it was a breathless whisper.

"You know why," Annatar said, in that low musical voice, bright as the ember that ignites an inferno. "You dream the same dreams."

***

The first time they had a conversation, Annatar came to Celebrimbor at the forge, where he was hammering steel upon an anvil. Sparks showered the air like fiery rain. Celebrimbor spared only a swift glance up, before returning to his task, shoulders tense. "What do you want from me?"

"Of all the Elven-smiths in Ost-in-Edhil, you alone have not sought me out. Might I ask why?"

Celebrimbor drew down his brows, but kept his eyes focused on his work. "I welcomed you when you arrived."

"You greeted me when I arrived," Annatar corrected. "You gave me leave to stay. But I fear you do not welcome me."

This Maia was too perceptive. Who did he think he was, this careless interloper, with his brilliant ideas and divine genius? Taking a day to solve a problem that had taken Celebrimbor a year to even grasp. The Valar and the Maiar already had their chance at shaping the universe. Celebrimbor only wanted this one corner of the world for his workshop, to build his own realm here in Eregion.

Then out of nowhere, this Maia came sweeping in. And everyone turned to him like the sun had never risen before.

Celebrimbor shrugged. "You have won the favour of all my people with your generosity. Why should you need my welcome?"

Annatar watched him work. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don't need you to bespell this helm into existence." Celebrimbor took hold of his wrists, and turned his palms upward. "Look at your hands. Then look at mine. Have you ever made anything without using your magic?"

Annatar regarded their joined hands. He had no scars. No burns from working at the forge, no calluses from gripping the tools. Celebrimbor had been trained on how to be careful, but his skin was flecked with the marks of experience.

"You too are a being of magic," Annatar said at last. "It finds its way into all your works. Do not deceive yourself otherwise."

"Yes. But only half of me is magic. The other half of me is not." Maybe things were different in the Blessed Realm, but Celebrimbor remembered too many who had died in these Hither Lands. "We are subject to the limits of the world and the limits of our selves. You cannot hope to understand us unless you understand both."

"Then show me." Annatar turned his hands over, to clasp Celebrimbor by the wrists. His touch was warm and solid, nothing ethereal about it. "I have put on this form like a new raiment. But I cannot shed it as carelessly as a cloak. I can be wounded or hurt. I can suffer pain and endure distress. Do not think it does not cost me, to walk here among you."

His voice revealed a raw edge. The first flaw in his immaculate shell. Celebrimbor gave him the hammer, wrapping their hands together. "This is how you begin."

***

They met many times after that. Annatar continued to dispense arcane knowledge to all, as lightly as plans for a new type of windmill. Celebrimbor could tell how much it pleased him when his designs were put to use. Celebrimbor understood that kind of pride. He had seen it in the faces of his kin. He saw it in the mirror every day.

Someday, he would show Annatar what the Eldar were capable of without any help. Some great work, wrought in secret, to astonish him.

Annatar was a quick student at metalworking and goldsmithing, and his hands soon showed the marks of hard use. But even clothed in flesh, he shone with unearthly radiance, like he was filled with the light of the Blessed Realm, a light Celebrimbor knew he would never see. It was folly to yearn for it.

Celebrimbor looked out the window at his city, flowering amid the holly. So too had flourished Nargothrond, and Menegroth, and Gondolin. No city stood forever. Even the Eldar eventually succumbed to weariness of body and soul. Mortals could not endure in immortal lands. Perhaps immortals could not endure in mortal lands. "Everything fades, everything fails. How do you fight when time decays all things to dust, when entropy is built into the bones of the universe?"

But even were he no longer under the Ban of the Valar, he would recoil from the thought of going into the West, defeated, with nothing. Surely there must be a way, to make this land into a paradise, like the perfect and unattainable Blessed Realm.

"You have me," Annatar said, touching his shoulder. "Together there are no secrets we cannot unlock. Imagine it. The gifts we could bestow upon all who dwell in this Middle-Earth."

***

"Lord of Gifts," Celebrimbor said one night, when they were alone. "There is a request I wish to make."

Annatar dipped his gaze, with a faint smile. "Ask me anything. I will answer."

"Will you come to my bed?" Celebrimbor managed to keep his voice steady. It was a bold question, and he braced for the response.

Annatar simply regarded him with that unreadable smile.

"You know I want you," Celebrimbor said, his throat dry. "But do you want me?"

"I have wanted you," Annatar said, in a soft voice, "since before I laid eyes on you."

"You need not flatter me," Celebrimbor said, but heat rose in his face.

"No. It is the plain truth. All along my travels, as I took the road through this land, I knew you. Your towers and your spires, your bells and your chimes, and all the works of your hand and your thought. They speak your heart."

Annatar threaded his fingers through that dark fall of hair, winding Celebrimbor down upon him. They fell upon the bed as one, arms interlaced and bodies entwined. The heat between them was like a furnace stoked to roaring intensity. Celebrimbor ached with the ferocity of his desire. Was it always like this? Or only with a Maia? Or because it was Annatar? He wanted to join them together until they merged into one. A complete union: knowing the soul, through your mind; knowing the body, through your hands.

"Have you ever?" Celebrimbor asked. "Before."

Annatar stilled, the shadow of memories passing over his eyes. "Not like this. It is different among spirits like us." He kissed Celebrimbor. "You are the first of the Eldar I have loved."

***

Celebrimbor dreamt of fire and gold, two elements whose union brought beauty into the universe. He looked across the bed at Annatar: the fire of his hair, the gold of his eyes. All the smiths shared in the bounty of Annatar's knowledge, but only Celebrimbor had this: the touch of a secret flame from before the making of the world.

How do you hold onto a moment in time, preserved like a dragonfly in amber? He understood now Fëanor's burning desire, to catch the light of the Trees in unbreakable crystal. He wanted to bind this memory in a circle of gold sealed by fire.

Thingol had loved a Maia. They built Doriath together. When he died, she departed forever, and his kingdom perished.

"If something happened to me," Celebrimbor said, "would you leave Middle-Earth?"

Annatar put a hand on his wrist. "I would never let anything happen to you."

Celebrimbor shook his head. Only a divine entity could be idealistic enough to make that kind of promise. "I have to know. Before I let you join your power to my works. Can I depend on you to stay? I won't let my realm fall into ruin. There are people I have promised to protect."

Annatar was silent for long moments, so long that Celebrimbor feared what confession he had forced. At last, Annatar said, "There is no place for me in Valinor anymore. I could not live there in blissful ignorance, knowing what could yet be done on the other side of the Sea." He touched Celebrimbor on the lips. "My heart belongs here."

Celebrimbor kissed his fingers, then his throat, then his mouth. Annatar was here as a man, the Lord of Gifts. But he himself was one of these gifts, that Celebrimbor longed to use. He gazed at Annatar with an unaccountable thrill, that he held in his hands a spirit of fire, a living vessel of power.

He murmured, "We will make something beautiful, together, that will endure many ages of the world."


End file.
